Dr. Sick Notes a Waste of Time, Physician Tells Pizza Hut

A Canadian doctor took Pizza Hut Canada to task this week for its policy requiring employees to get a physician note if they take a sick day, telling the company in a now-viral letter that “surely there are better ways of wasting your tax dollars.”

The note was posted to Reddit and Imgur on Tuesday and, since then, it’s been viewed nearly 4 million times. In it, the doctor said the unidentified employee “has had, by their own report, a cold today and sensibly stayed home from work rather than spreading it to his colleagues/customers.”

The doctor elaborated that, since there is no test for the common cold, he had to go by his belief in what the patient said. He then zinged Pizza Hut's policy requiring a sick note for any missed days.

“You feel his time and mine should be wasted by making him sit in the walk-in clinic for hours and me spending time writing a sick note that I could be spending on people who genuinely need my attention,” the doctor wrote.

Dr. Scott Wooder told CBC that policies like that discourage employees who are ill from staying home.

In 2014, another doctor’s note regarding employee proof of illness went viral. This one was from a Nova Scotia doctor who made it a practice of charging employers $30 per sick note she had to write.

Dr. Ethel Cooper-Rosen told CBC that she feels the practice is “inappropriate.”

“Doctors Nova Scotia feels that this is inappropriate. Patients who have mild viral illnesses and have no reason to see the doctor, because really, the treatment for these illnesses is stay home and rest," Cooper-Rosen told CBC.

The latest viral sick note drew numerous stories from readers.

“Why not do it sensibly like the UK? Absences under 5 working days are self authorised, anything more done by a doctor,” one person commented on Imgur.

A Canadian doctor took Pizza Hut Canada to task this week for its policy requiring employees to get a physician note if they take a sick day, telling the company in a now-viral letter that “surely there are better ways of wasting your tax dollars.”